Webster’s defines “secret police” as “a police organization operating for the most part in secrecy and especially for the political purposes of its government often with terroristic methods." As in, the Soviet KGB or the East German Stasi.

Greece has voted for a new government, led by the socialist Syriza party. They won on a campaign vow not to accept economic cutbacks demanded by the European Union, in return for a promised $336-billion bailout.

When Margaret Thatcher died in 2013, the U.S. sent no senior dignitaries to her funeral. Next to Winston Churchill, Thatcher was the most consequential prime minister the U.K. had in a century, and she was an indispensable ally to the U.S., in the Cold War and the first Gulf War too. But the only representative from Barack Obama’s administration wa

Last week’s terrorist attacks were France’s equivalent of 9/11. Except that after America’s 9/11, there was no million-person solidarity march in the streets of New York. There was in Paris last Sunday, and more than 40 world leaders attended. Canada sent a cabinet minister.

There are many strange things about Danielle Smith quitting her post as leader of the opposition in Alberta, defecting to the governing Progressive Conservatives, and effectively dissolving the province’s first real opposition party in a generation.

Christmas came early for liberals last week. A report from the U.S. Senate confessed that the CIA engaged in torture, that it did so secretly and without government approval, and the torture didn’t actually yield any useful intelligence information.

Stories

A public inquiry is a useful tool when there are big public questions to be answered that need the power of a judge - the power to subpoena recalcitrant witnesses, the power to cross-examine witnesses under oath, the power to challenge a branch of government.

Justin Trudeau has been an MP for five years, and leader of his party for five months. So last week, at a press scrum in Prince Edward Island, reporters asked him why he hasn’t released a set of policies yet.

In a revealing new book, The Enemy Within, the Sun's Ezra Levant brings Omar Khadr's story back into the public eye. Having completed his U.S. sentence in October 2011, Omar Khadr could return to Canada at any time. He may well be released, thanks to a lenient system that will likely credit him for the time he has served awaiting trial in Guantanam